Giles Clarke, inventor of many valuable cricket laws © Getty Images

Life, friends, is a complicated, unsettling, sometimes dangerous business. We have to cling to what we know, to look to those truths that we can depend upon, which may not be for ever but which serve as useful beacons on the misty seas of 21st-century life. Fortunately there is one human foghorn in particular whose utterances always steer me in the right direction, away from the jagged rocks and into calmer waters. I am talking, of course, about Giles Clarke.

In the decades that have passed since he became ECB Chunterer-in-Chief, I have benefited enormously from his wisdom and even formulated some simple maxims to sum up his teaching. For example, Clarke’s First Law Of Cricket is a cornerstone of the English game. It states that if Giles Clarke declares his admiration for something or someone, then you can be sure that person or object is bad for cricket and entirely worth avoiding.

The elegance of Clarke’s First Law is that the converse also applies. Anything that gets old chubby cheeks blowing out hot air like a dirigible with a puncture is highly desirable and unquestionably good for the game. Only last week we witnessed a splendid pageant of colourful and spurious arguments as Clarke launched himself onto the airwaves to explain why the recommendation that the Ashes be on free-to-air television after 2013 was A Very Bad Thing. A Very Bad Thing Indeed.

	Dhoni, in an extraordinary display of impudence, shares a laugh with Ponting at the last presentation ceremony of the series © AFP

Hold the front page! Saddle up your high horses and head for the moral uplands. Our old friend the cricket scandal is back in town, barging into forums and message boards across the cyber world, banging a metaphorical fist on a virtual table and demanding our attention. Yes, to the sound of several hundred million people tut-tutting in unison, it was revealed earlier this week that MS Dhoni and associates had been “partying” just hours after a cricket match that they’d had the appalling bad manners to lose.

When I first heard the news, naturally I was horrified. How dare they, I thought. What kind of heartless, selfish, irresponsible reprobates go out “partying” whilst a nation is still weeping over a defeat at the hands of Australia, a catastrophic event almost unheard of in the history of Indian cricket, certainly since the last one.

At first I resisted the temptation to click on the link inviting me to goggle at the sordid pictures of these debauched playboys getting up to all manner of disgraceful things. To click or not to click, that is so often the question. But after a millisecond or two spent weighing up the ethical issues involved, I decided to click. Invariably, I find it is better to have clicked and regretted it than never to have clicked at all.

However, for the benefit of those who did not click, I will tell you what you missed. Almost immediately, the scandal-seeking viewer was presented with a photograph of Dhoni, resplendent in a Michael Jackson t-shirt and beaming a well-scrubbed smile. Other photos followed, all of them featuring the Indian captain, the aforementioned t-shirt and an ever-present smile. Sometimes there were other people standing next to him. They were also smiling, though they were not wearing Michael Jackson t-shirts. I do not know their names. So far, so dull.

Then things started to get interesting. Just who was that mysterious man in the background? Could it be Praveen Kumar? Possibly. Well, guess what he was doing, this man-who-could-be-Praveen? Brace yourselves. You may want to make sure your children are not reading at this point. He was…(whisper it)…smoking! Yes, I know, I could scarcely believe it. But that wasn’t all.

Still reeling from the shock of Smoking-gate, I was confronted with a photo of Ashish Nehra. And what was that in his hand? It was a glass containing what appeared to be some kind of carbonated fruit-themed soft drink! Who knows how many he’d already had! Should he really have been drinking himself into a caffeine-frenzy in the middle of such an important series? Did his mother know he was out? What would Sachin say? What a scandal, what a disgrace… what a… what a… complete waste of our time.

	Ireland practise sarcastically celebrating a no-ball © ICC/Donal MacLeod

As a mere humourist, an amateur dabbler in the mysteries of cricket writing, I make it my business to study the greats. I have, for instance, catalogued every one of Gideon Haigh’s shopping lists from the autumn of 2005 onwards, and when I am particularly in need of inspiration I fetch them down from their place on my shelf next to Mike Atherton’s Notes to My Milkman 2002–2008 and pore over them for hours.

Of course, the conventional method of finding out what the best cricket minds are thinking is to read their Cricinfo columns. Last week, for instance, Peter Roebuck penned a piece that swiftly became essential reading at Hughes Towers. I printed off copies for all of the household staff and withheld their monthly remuneration until I was happy they had mastered the finer points of Mr Roebuck’s thesis.

I even had my butler recite it whilst I enjoyed my afternoon tea on the terrace. Hearing those words of reason pour forth once again, I felt all was right with the world. “Quite so!” I exclaimed as he extolled the virtues of opening up Test cricket’s borders. “Hear hear!” I declared as he railed against the ill-treatment of the “hard-pressed and often insulted spectators”. Indeed, at this point I was nodding so hard in agreement that my monocle popped out of my eye and into my Earl Grey.

Tea-splashingly good though his piece was, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass without correcting him on an important point. Specifically, in paragraph two he stated, “Test cricketers cannot be microwaved.” This is unduly defeatist. Granted, you might have to chop them up a bit first, but I'm certain that it could be done, given a sufficiently large plate and a dash of good old-fashioned determination.

	Siddle: refreshingly toxic © Getty Images

Cricket is like a soap opera and if you don’t watch every episode, you’ll find yourself failing to recognise some of the characters. For instance if you were one of those heathens who put your hands over your ears, closed your eyes and made “La la la la!” noises during the Champions League, you will find yourself at something of a disadvantage during the current 50-over bash in India.

Of course, some of the old characters that you know and love are still around. There’s grizzled old Punter, who is always grumbling but secretly has a heart of gold; saintly Uncle Sachin, who listens to everyone’s problems without ever complaining; and the villainous Bhaji, who is pretending to have turned over a new leaf, but who everyone knows is bound to do something despicable any day now.

But now that our Australian chums are starting to come apart like badly assembled action figures (these plastic Paines, Clarkes and Lees might look sexy but they just don’t have the staying power of those clunky old Aussies you got in the seventies), the selectors are being forced to reach deeper into the back of the domestic-cricket fridge, past the leftovers and those on the turn, to see if there’s anything they can use. As a result, for the casual non-Australian cricket watcher, parts of the scorecard might as well be written in Klingon. Henriques? Bollinger? McKay?

But here’s where the Champions League comes in. Those of us who watched (nearly) every twist and turn of that pilot show are fully up to speed on these new characters and are able to avoid some embarrassing faux pas when discussing the current series with taxi drivers, undercover vice-squad officers or members of Parliament.

We know, for example, that Clint McKay is not the cheroot-chomping, Stetson-wearing sidekick of cowboy Jesse Ryder. Moises Henriques is not the dictator of a small island off the Mozambique coast with a solid gold throne and a personal bodyguard of Amazonian mercenaries. And Doug Bollinger is not a cartoon character devised to help sell champagne to the Australian market.

	Dino alert: Ishant does his thing © Getty Images

After the sweaty, rustic charm of the Champions League, the resumption of international festivities has brought about a welcome elevation of tone. Wednesday’s clash of continents was full of good things, and whilst Sunday belonged to Australia, India struck back to stir the sediment of our jaded imaginations with the enlivening possibility of a genuinely suspenseful series. Dhoni, of course, was immense but it was the reinvigorated Ishant Sharma whom I most enjoyed watching, his angular, bent-forward lope to the crease putting me in mind of a velociraptor, ball perched between claws, intent on savaging the batsman’s knuckles (battered and swollen metacarpals being the tell-tale sign of an Ishant attack).

And with two of the game’s greatest batsmen on the same field of play, it was an ideal opportunity for the collector of cricket images to acquire more pieces for the memory. The batting displays in the Tendulkar and Ponting wings of my mind’s museum are already pretty crowded, so during the current series I have been on the look out for cameos, intriguing Tendlya or Punter-related items of sentimental or curiosity value.

A good collector has to be patient and wait for the right moment. On Wednesday it came in the 62nd over, when Lord Sachin was called upon to take human form and intervene at square leg. His stooping, tumbling dive was the everything-falling-out-of-pockets scramble across the platform of a portly businessman whose briefcase has become trapped in the door of a departing train. Yet he reached the ball. Returning the offending item to his captain with underarm disdain, he dusted down his suit and reassembled his composure. It was Tendulkar encapsulated: successful yet free of swagger; whole-hearted yet dignified.

	Hauritz: when a man’s gotta celebrate, a man’s gotta celebrate © Getty Images

Punter probably gets a bad press, but sometimes it seems that journalists only need to poke him with a stick and then press “Record”. This week the grumbler’s grumbler has been disgruntled over the late arrival in Vadodara of the Champions League Three: Brett Lee, Doug Bollinger and Nathan Hauritz. The trio were unable to prepare for Sunday’s game of cricket because they had been playing cricket, and apparently there is no worse preparation for a professional cricketer than to be playing cricket.

The Aussie captain was particularly annoyed because whilst they were away playing cricket, they were altogether unavailable for the tactical seminars conducted by Team Australia ahead of the first one-day international. Talk of these tactics intrigued me. Were they so complicated that they couldn’t be explained in an hour or two on the morning of the match? Does Brett Lee really need to attend a workshop on how to bowl at Sachin Tendulkar?

Probably not, I thought. But then I am not an initiate in the Byzantine complexities of the great game. All us plebs need to know is that these “tactics” exist and that they are so fiendishly difficult that they need several days to fully explain. Or perhaps the tactics are fairly simple but the cricketers are relatively dim. Maybe the days leading up to an international are spent in a classroom with a slack-jawed Lee staring uncomprehendingly at a whiteboard upon which General Ponting has drawn a picture of some stumps with the word “stumps” written underneath in large capital letters.

Then there was the stirring tale of Nathan Hauritz and his dash across India to answer his nation’s call. The headlines told it all. Words like, “weary”, “sleep-deprived” and “frenetic schedule” all featured prominently. A little further reading uncovered the details of Hauritz’s horror timetable, beginning after Friday night’s Champions League Final. Left dressing room at 1am. Caught flight at mid-day. Arrived 8:30pm on Saturday night, a mere 12 hours before the toss. Wait a minute, what was that first item again? Left dressing room at 1am?

“Becoming the inaugural champions, you still have to celebrate with your team-mates,” said Hauritz. Do you? When you have an important flight to catch the next day?

	'Fred?' 'Yes Harmy.' 'I feel a whinge about too much cricket coming on' © Cricinfo Ltd

Regular readers of this blog will find that from time to time I put forward proposals to benefit the game as a whole. Already this week I have launched a petition to persuade Mr T to join the elite panel of umpires (“Don’t give me no howzat, sucker, that was going down leg-side, fool!”) and emailed the BBC to suggest that Test Match Special replace their current theme tune with the one from MASH. So while the relevant bodies mull over those beauties, here’s another corker from the Hughes think tank.

It is high time that we brought back the good old-fashioned gagging order. Under this system, no player will be allowed to talk to anyone, not even their partners, until the end of their playing career. Now I realise that this means fewer interviews, fewer autobiographies and fewer celebrity ghost-written tabloid columns. But these aren’t the only benefits.

We might also get to hear less about "burnout". Burnout is such a dramatic word. It conjures up the image of a spent firework lying smouldering on the grass or a high-performance racing car pulled over to the side of the road with smoke pouring from its engine. Upon investigation, I discovered that my dictionary defines burnout as "to become ineffective through overwork".

Still, it is hard to see how this word could be employed when talking about cricketers. For a start, you would need to define "ineffective". In many cases, it would be fiendishly difficult to tell the difference between a cricketer who was naturally ineffective and one who had ineffectiveness thrust upon him due to the demands of the Future Tours Programme.

	Law enforcement catches up with Brad Hodge for his role in a cartoon cricket match © Cricinfo Ltd

What the Jimmy Anderson was that?

I had cleared my schedule for this clash of the blue Titans. I accumulated several road traffic violations whilst dashing back from my daughter’s school in order not to miss the opening exchanges, and in the face of considerable protest I vetoed her proposal that she be allowed to watch some cartoons. Top-class sport is all about sacrifices, I told her and in any case, the misadventures of Mr Squarepants couldn’t possibly compare with the tough, gristly contest that was about to ensue at 1530 BST on Eurosport UK.

I will admit that there was more at stake than just the chance to watch some all-Aussie action. For many long years I have been boring people senseless with my theories on the inadequacy of the English domestic game versus its Australian counterpart. Aussie cricket is tougher, I would explain to the nearest set of ears, because there are fewer teams, so the talent is more concentrated, you see. I would then elaborate on the Academy, annual rainfall in the Australasian region, the administrative methodology of Cricket Australia, the teachings of Master Langer and so on and so forth until their eyes glazed over and I once more found myself checking the wine list on my own.

So the Champions League was the perfect test and when Somerset and Sussex crashed out while Victoria and New South Wales strolled to the semi-finals, I could savour the warm glow of unbearable smugness. All that was needed for my theory to be proven and my self-satisfaction to be engraved in stone was an epic tussle between these Australian giants, a no-holds-barred, no-mercy sledgefest, a battering of limbs and wills that would have us wincing and hiding behind the sofa at the sheer unrelenting ferocious professionalism of it all.

	It's the banner wavers who make the game possible © Cricinfo Ltd

Who’s the most important person in cricket? I’ll give you a clue. It isn’t His Modiness. It isn’t Freelance Freddie, Lord Sachin or even Jowly Giles Clarke (bless him). Geoffrey Boycott thinks he’s quite important. But he isn’t.

It’s you. And me. And everyone else who spends their spare sofa time gawping at Cape Cobras versus Delhi Daredevils or sitting on a plastic seat in the drizzle, watching Leicestershire’s middle-of-the-table tussle with Glamorgan. Without us, buying our match tickets, cable subscriptions, biographies and IPL-themed underwear (Kolkata’s gold-lamé knickers look particularly alluring), there would be no cricket.

But the game’s upside down right now. Players are at the top of the tree, and then come administrators, franchise owners, television executives, coaches and commentators. We plebs are at the bottom of the heap and we have to like what we’re given. So we get major international tournament finals on a Monday, we get players hiding in the dressing room because it’s a bit wet/chilly/slippery/bee-infested, we get pay-through-the-nose match tickets, we get inane television commentary; and we get adverts, endless bloody adverts on top of exorbitant satellite subscription fees.

And if being treated as a cash machine, a sack of disposable income or an economic unit isn’t bad enough; those above us in the cricket food chain always seem to know what’s best for us. English hacks are the worst for this. Take the Natwest Series between England and Australia. No one cared about it apparently, no one was interested, it was a giant snoozefest. Really? Try telling that to the thousands upon thousands who paid £70 and upwards for a ticket and sat shivering in the stands. Apparently, we need less international one-day cricket. Why? We like it.

	The scoop: when it finally came, it didn’t come off © Getty Images

Jimi Hendrix first set light to his guitar at the end of a gig in March 1967. The crowd loved it so much he started to do it regularly. It soon became such a part of his act that if he didn’t take a cigarette lighter to his Stratocaster, the paying public felt short-changed. Now maybe it is the wild hair, the earring or the outrageous talent, but Tillakaratne Dilshan is starting to remind me of Hendrix. Yes, yes, yes, we were all thinking, as he nudged and tapped his first few balls around today, that’s all very well, but when’s he going to do the funny down-on-one-knee scoopy thingy? That’s what we’ve paid our money for. But when he finally pulled out the party piece, it proved his undoing. So is he going to feel obliged to do it every time? Or could he come up with another gimmick to trump the Scoop? Maybe he could set fire to his bat?

Dilshan couldn’t save Delhi yesterday and nor could Virender Sehwag, despite some trademark carnage, which, as ever, was either going to end in a new batting record or a catch on the boundary. After 47 effortless runs, he holed out, and so the sole remaining IPL franchise crashed out of the Champions League.

In fact, the evening game was something of a cricketing Götterdämmerung in which the last two Indian teams failed to do the sensible thing, instead taking one another down like two stubborn elephants squabbling over a bag of peanuts whilst the rope bridge they are both standing on starts to fray.

	Mike Hussey demonstrates a 98%-effort dive © Getty Images

So, the Sharks of Sussex are out of the world’s finest international-club-versus-franchise jamboree. Their elimination on Tuesday night raised many questions. What were they doing there? What time is the flight home? When will they get their money? Additionally, the manner of their exit led some to question the legitimacy of the super over as a method of settling a match. Surely, it was a violation of Rory Hamilton-Brown’s human rights for him to be embarrassed twice in the same match. Isn’t there a better way? Indeed there is. Here, for your thoughtful consideration are four proposals for ensuring a swift and compassionate end to proceedings on those occasions when the participants have been too inept to sort it out for themselves.

The Coin Toss
Before we consider the ridiculous, let us contemplate the sublime. The coin is, in fact, an elegant and unimpeachable arbiter and many of us have made some of our most important life decisions after flinging a bit of currency into the air. Indeed, I know of one particular High Court judge who would simply be unable to dispense justice as efficiently as he does without recourse to the coin toss. If it is good enough to decide upon prison sentences, marriage proposals, job offers and where to go for lunch, it ought to be good enough to settle the outcome of a Twenty20 game.

The Percentometer
Cricketers love statistics but are notoriously unreliable. When Ravi Bopara says he gave it 110%, how can we be sure that this is an accurate estimate? For all we know, he might only have given it 106% or 99%. Fortunately, scientists at the Adelaide Institute of Silly Studies have developed the Percentometer, a device that can measure how hard a team have tried in percentage terms by correlating sweat volumes, profanity output and steely glares. In the event of a tie, the team with the highest Percentometer readings will win the game.

	Richie Benaud: “There was only thish much in it” © Getty Images

It all started at breakfast. I had just poured out my customary bowl of chocolate googlies and was about to add a dash of the semi-skimmed when I noticed that the cocoa-flavoured shapes had formed themselves into the image of Richie Benaud gazing sadly into the middle distance.

Now, students of cricket-lore will know that the breakfast-time manifestation of a former Australian cricketer is a portent of some significance. For example, if your egg yolk takes on the shape of David Boon, your health check-up is overdue; if your buttered toast looks a bit like Kim Hughes, you should keep an eye on your work colleagues, and if you see Glenn McGrath in your tea leaves, you are probably Mike Atherton.

But what, I wondered, could Richie be trying to tell me? The answer became clear at a little after 6.45 this evening. As Rory Hamilton-Brown failed utterly to defend his wooden castle, I finally understood. Besides being everyone’s favourite decommissioned Australian captain, retired wrist-swiveller and microphone jockey, Benaud is a betting shaman. He had taken on cereal form in order to warn me.

	Here we are now, entertain us © Getty Images

“Make some noise!” screamed the DJ, although from where I was sitting, the Hyderabad crowd needed no instructions in the etiquette of din-making. A raucous, joyful racket seems to come naturally to an Indian cricket audience, as does its counterpart: complete and utter silence. And the passing from one state to the other can be disconcerting to the non-Indian, sofa-bound viewer. In the time it took the white ball bowled by Peter Trego to pass VVS Laxman’s bat and crash into the stripe-y stumps, the deafening nightclub atmosphere of the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium was replaced by a quiet so complete and so eerie that we could have been watching a county game at Taunton. At first, I thought I’d pressed the mute button by mistake.

“I want rainy sixes”, read one banner in the crowd, clearly fashioned by a Somerset fan pining for the dampness of old Blighty. There was no rain, but there were sixes, my favourite ones being those dished up by Venugopal Rao, who for his first effort seemed barely to touch bat on ball but managed to send it crashing into the Deccan-blue plastic chairs beyond the long-on boundary. And, mercy of mercies, these big hits were entirely unsponsored. They were sixes in their natural state, as God intended them, with just a comforting cliché or two (“Oh that’s gone a long way!”) to mark their passing.

	Jamelia, as not seen by your correspondent (sob) © Getty Images

It has been a trying day, cricket chums.

On the way home to my country estate, I popped into Mr Border’s Newsagent and Tucker Shop for an Evening Standard and a little refreshment. “Good evening, sir, I’d like to purchase a bottle of mineral water,” I offered, politely. The gruff, bearded custodian glowered at me from behind his counter. “Mineral water?” he growled, “What do you think this is, a f***** tea party?” A few minutes later, I emerged, somewhat shaken, with two tins of dog food and a packet of firelighters. I must confess, I do sometimes wonder whether poor old Mr Border is quite cut out for the service industry.

Never mind, I thought, at least I have Jamelia to look forward to. Not being able to witness the opening extravaganza of the Champions League first hand, I had entrusted the task of recording said festival of jollity to an electronic device, a device that, it transpired, was incapable of performing the one task that justified its existence; a device that is currently residing amidst the azaleas in an upside-down position.

As the horror of the situation dawned upon me, I didn’t panic. The modern armchair cricketer must have the mind of a nuclear physicist, the reflexes of a panther and the manual dexterity of a concert pianist. I did some quick mental arithmetic, realised that the broadcast hadn’t quite finished, and after playing a rapid arpeggio on the remote control, managed to catch the last 20 seconds live from Bangalore.

	Deccan: they charge quite bit for their services, you know © Associated Press

So the big one is almost upon us. Over the next day or so, you can expect to be bombarded with Champions League previews, but frankly, you might as well ignore all of them, because this is the only appetite-whetter you’ll need. Armed with the Long Handle Dummies’ Guide to the Champions League, you will be able to bluff your way through those tricky CL conversations that will soon be taking place in offices, nightclubs, brothels and places of worship around the globe.

How Does It Work?
The format is simplicity itself. A dozen teams play one another approximately 117 times in the first Super Eliminator Knock-Out Round. The squad with the most hamstring injuries will then drop out before we enter the Extra Special Decider Mini-League, from which the 10 least exhausted teams will progress, and so on. Eventually, after just 7102 pulsating matches, we will reach the Ultimate Supreme Champion Play-Off World Series Final, at the end of which the Indian team with the highest number of points will be declared the winner and will be named Supreme Overlords and Rulers of the Universe (2009), although they will have to defend their title almost immediately.

What Should We Look Out For?
Some of the world’s finest commentators and Mark Nicholas have been polishing their adjectives in preparation for this feast of cricket, so you can expect some innovative and daring use of sponsors’ names during the long, long days ahead. Viewers should also be on the lookout for the early signs of Twenty20 fatigue, the first symptoms of which are an inability to remember which teams are playing, and a nagging feeling that Ravi Shastri is hiding in your wardrobe.

	Bond: stinging sensation © Getty Images

So the conclusion of the ICC Champions Trophy, 2009’s last set-piece occasion, the ultimate chapter of a gripping cricket narrative, when all will finally be revealed to a worldwide audience is to be held on… a Monday. High fives all round for the scheduling committee! Give yourself a pat on the back, Haroon Lorgat (or have one of your people do it), cos you da man! Yes, you’ve gone and done it again, ICC, and if I hadn’t lost my hat in an unfortunate yachting incident at Cowes, I’d be removing it and doffing it in the general direction of Dubai.

Monday. At the precise moment when a sturdy operatic type with a microphone begins to belt out “Advance Australia Fair” or “God Defend New Zealand” at a frighteningly loud volume, I wonder where the cricket populace of the world will be? Well, in South Africa and England they will be at work. In the Caribbean they will be getting ready for work. In Mumbai, Lahore, Colombo and Dhaka they will be coming home from work. And in Sydney and Wellington, they will be slumped bleary-eyed on their sofas or in bed after a day at work. Spot the common theme?

No doubt, in ICC world, where every day is a cocktail party, one day of the week is much the same as another. There may also be the odd weirdo out there for whom the dawn of another Monday is joy incarnate. However, I am with Bob Geldof on the subject of Mondays. It is not a day for finals. It is a day for weary soberness, for 10 cups of coffee before your lunch break, for hauling yourself out of bed and yawning at the futility of another working week. Let us hope those poor souls staying up in Melbourne and Auckland get a decent final, because they deserve it.

	Thanks, I’ll pass © Getty Images

I don’t like the English cricket team. There, I said it. I feel no attachment whatsoever to this particular collection of blue-clad gym-botherers. It may be traitors’ talk, but I am entirely indifferent to the outcome of Friday’s semi-final. The match itself, I am looking forward to. The result is irrelevant.

So why don’t I care?

First of all, I’m not a natural patriot. The merest sight of a St George Cross and I begin to mumble angrily into my cocoa and feel an urge to whistle the “Marseillaise” or set fire to some Morris dancers’ handkerchiefs.

Ah, you might say, once a traitor, always a traitor. You may be right.

But ‘twas not always thus. Even though I grew up watching an inept bunch of no-hopers struggle desperately every summer, I took it for granted that I wanted England to win, and I took these losers to my heart. If I were asked to name my cricket hero, I would first lecture the interrogator on the inanity of the question, and then mutter something about Mike Atherton.

My levels of Englishness peaked in 2005. Watching reruns of that Ashes series, I realise that at the time I must have been blind to the drunken morons on the terraces, oblivious to the mindless, draining partiality of that summer’s prevailing mood and to the manner in which the subtle complexities of the great game were overwhelmed by a torrent of red-and-white jingoism. Australia were the cruel tormentors, the heartless tyrants, and we were finally overthrowing them. It was a victory for justice and freedom. Cry God for Freddie, England and St George!

	Not, repeat, not Satan © Getty Images

Good evening. My name is Sir Charles Parasite of legal firm Parasite and Leach (London branch). I am writing on behalf of my client, a Mr Hughes, who wishes me to make the following statement:

In an article published on Page 2 of the world famous (note: check this) Cricinfo site, my client made reference to a Mr Brendon McCullum (henceforth known as “Baz”). During the course of what my client assures me was a hilarious piece of writing (note: check this), he may have unwittingly and entirely without malice insinuated that Baz was an unsavoury character, a troublemaker and a danger to society.

My client had been acting on information received from what he believed was a reliable source, suggesting that Baz had been attempting to exploit a loophole by not signing his Cricket New Zealand contract. It would not be fair to reveal the identity of that source, although we can confirm that the individual concerned is believed to be prominent in the tournament-organising industry and that his surname starts with Modi. Mr Hughes would like it to be known that he now believes that Baz did not delay the signing of his contract and that even if he had done (which he didn’t) it would have been for the good of the game.

Mr Hughes would also like to place on record that the Black Caps are always his favourite losing semi-finalists, would remind the public of his tireless work on behalf of temporarily incapacitated New Zealand cricketers in the wake of the Grant Elliot affair, and above all would like it to be known that he is second to none in his admiration for Baz’s ability to hit a little ball in various directions.

On a legal note, I would like to add at this point that here at Parasite and Leach, we are firm believers in the principle of freedom of speech. Nevertheless, any further comments suggesting that my client is a) incompetent, b) illiterate or c) Australian, will be referred to our Wellington branch and the originators of said comments detained under the Prevention of Irritation to Cricket Writers Act 2009.

	Shahid Afridi does his best Saturday Night Fever impression © Getty Images

Some images from Saturday’s game linger in the mind. There were the ghostly faces of players shrouded in sunscreen. There was Mohammad Yousuf’s grim, expressionless concentration - a man of fortitude and endurance at work. There was the close-up of Harbhajan’s gleaming kara, his hand cradling the green-stained ball that looked like a moss-covered relic from a bone yard. There was 17-year-old Mohammad Aamer blowing Gautam Gambhir a kiss, Sachin Tendulkar’s exquisite square drive, the whirl of Simon Taufel’s finger to signal yet another free hit.

The surroundings played their part. As the stadium resounded with shouts, whistles, drums and music, the fierce light of a Highveldt mid-day seemed to belong to another continent entirely. Then slowly the Indian players’ uniforms began to turn darker shades of blue, night crept up unannounced and the broiling arena was transformed into a clammy, floodlit film-set.

It was compulsive television. And even though by the standards of one-day cricket it was not a nail-biter, you didn’t want to leave your sofa. We owed the players that much at least. They seemed to be walking on eggshells. Every movement, every gesture, every run, no-ball, misfield and stumble brought instant feedback from the crowd. The audience were part of this drama, not mere onlookers. The pressure was evident in the muted behaviour of the players, unleashed in moments of celebration and sometimes in wild, pleading appeals. India were the more inhibited team, made more bad decisions under pressure, and so they lost.

And in the midst of all this sweaty tension, there were some bizarre musical interludes. A failed Harbhajan sprawl and claw at third man was greeted with the chorus to “Come On Eileen”. A short while later, RP Singh had only just begun to wipe the grass stains from his trouser knees after an inelegant fumble when Abba’s “Dancing Queen” blasted out across Supersport Park. Either the DJ was a Pakistan supporter or he had a dangerously mischievous sense of humour.

	Jesse does the seventies © Getty Images

Let there be no doubt, cricket is men’s work. Women may be able to bat, bowl and field as well as the lesser sex, but there is one cricket skill in which, by and large, men remain pre-eminent: the rapid production of facial hair. And one man in particular, one selfless hero, has just raised cricket’s masculinity bar a notch higher. That’s right. Jesse Ryder has grown a moustache.

At the moment, it is hard to tell which way Jesse’s ‘tache will go. It’s something of a mini-Boon, but by the time the Champions Trophy comes to an end, he may be walking around with a full Zapata under his nose. Or perhaps he might go in for the waxed Hercule Poirot, or possibly even a Salvador Dali. I’ll keep you posted.

Of course, as we all know, the moustache is the nuclear option when it comes to demonstrating one’s masculinity and it brings its own particular dangers. Admirable though it is, this extra infusion of hairy-lipped testosterone into the New Zealand squad could have repercussions. Indeed, I’ve suspected for a long time that we may be approaching a fashion black hole. Consider, if you will, Jacob Oram’s hair. At what point does deliberately messy become just plain scruffy? Before you know it, people will be sprouting sideburns, shirts will remain unfastened and we will be back in the dark, hairy, and above all ugly, seventies; a decade when even attractive cricketers looked like they’d spent their close season living in a ditch.

It was precisely in order to uphold the aesthetic purity of the modern game that I recently launched my latest campaign. I am proposing that tattoos are made illegal under Level 4 of the ICC Code of Conduct. We all know that there are only three kinds of people on whom tattoos look good: Maoris, Bronze Age tribesmen and 19th century sailors. On everyone else they look like the scribblings of someone who tried to cheat in their maths exam, failed and then forgot to wash off the evidence. It can surely be no coincidence that the two biggest troublemakers in international cricket - Andrew Flintoff and Brendon McCullum - are covered in inky dribble

	Full disclosure: your correspondent’s cellphone-alert tone is a song by this man © Getty Images

Burnout. It is the scourge of our times. And it can devastate lives. In fact, it struck this very morning. I had just sat down to my usual orderly breakfast, my eggs perfectly boiled, my toast symmetrically aligned and my butler standing ready with the Lady Grey. All that was missing was a crisp pile of fan mail. The clock ticked on inexorably. Eight thirty-one. Eight thirty-two. The toast cooled. Outside on the lawn, a cricket chirped. Silence reigned.

Then, instead of the comforting rattle of a brass letterbox, I was shaken by the shrieking of a polyphonic Freddie Mercury. I had received a text message from my local sorting office, informing me that my postman was unable to fulfill his contractual duties today. He had, it emerged, been delivering letters and parcels for 15 of the last 21 days and the Post Office management had decided to give him a rest, lest his letterbox-stuffing career be cut short.

My breakfast was ruined. The eggs were two degrees below their optimum edible temperature and my butler had sustained third-degree teapot burns. But I was not angry. You see, dear reader, I felt that poor mailman’s pain. I too have fallen victim to the curse of burnout.

	“Hello, I’ll be your Ronnie for the day” © Getty Images

In less than three weeks time, the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 tournament will begin. Naturally, I assume you will all be watching. In these parts, the whole shebang is to be broadcast by British Eurosport, something of a coup for a channel more accustomed to bringing us the Baltic Wood-Chopping Grand Prix and Snail Endurance Racing from Calais.

None of this is a problem. I’m a broadminded kind of guy; I can live with getting my fix of the pyjama game via a rickety studio in Luxembourg. Anyway, thanks to the marvels of modern-day capitalism, I have no choice.

No, what is troubling me is the news that England’s very own Freddie Flintoff is to be part of the commentary team. Now Fred is a nice bloke, he does a good line in post-match self-deprecation, and I understand he has some interesting things to say on the subject of post-millennial immigration and its impact on standards of service in the hospitality industry.

Nevertheless, for all of his merits, he has one fault that renders him a commentary liability. He sounds exactly like Ronnie Irani. This is no trivial objection. For the last six months, I have been running a support group for traumatised IPL viewers suffering the effects of Post-Irani Syndrome. The symptoms they describe are invariably the same. Victims report seeing a yellow haze that they slowly recognise as the Setanta studio. They hear a man talking. The voice gets louder. They can make out the words, “I tell you what…” Then they wake up screaming.

The thought of this much-anticipated tournament being played out to a sound track of Lancastrian platitudes is enough to keep me up in the early hours, gnawing my pillow with anxiety. We can only hope that Freelance Fred is not being paid by the word.

I don’t know about you, but for a while now I have felt that there is something missing on Cricinfo. Sure, there’s plenty of informed opinion and pages of piercing analysis. Statistical weightiness? Check. Erudite journalism? Yep. Comprehensive information? You betcha.

That’s all very lovely. But what if you’re in the mood for some uninformed opinion? What if you have a liking for flawed arguments? And, while we’re at it, where are the wildly inaccurate recollections? Where are the vivid hallucinations, the ill-considered rants and the dangerously over-inflated metaphors? Look for these things on Cricinfo for as long as you want; you will not find them. In the march to the sunlit uplands of excellence, vast swathes of unexplored amateurishness have been overlooked.

Well, no more. I have been asked to venture forth into these territories, to pioneer on behalf of the dilettantes, the idlers, the malconents and the misguided; to speak for the silent minority, for those of us who like a little grit in our oysters.

My quest begins with a name: The Long Handle. What do we mean by The Long Handle? What is all about? Why is it here? Where has it come from? When will it stop? All of these questions will be answered over the coming weeks.

For those who can’t wait, all I can do is offer a little taste, a hint of what The Long Handle stands for. It is the look in Harbhajan’s eye just before he swings his handbag. It is the roar of an angry Sidebottom as Monty drops another sitter. It is the moment in a Shane Warne hair advert when you realise they aren’t joking. It is all these things and more. And sometimes less.